


Of My Heart to See

by chocobos



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-16
Updated: 2012-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-31 06:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/340960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chocobos/pseuds/chocobos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Dean and Castiel fret over what to get each other for Valentine's Day, and wherein Sam crushes on someone untouchable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of My Heart to See

**Author's Note:**

> This is a late Valentine's Day fic that kind of came to me on a whim. I ended up finish this pretty quickly, so please feel free to tell me if there are any mistakes! Thank you so much to suchalamb@tumblr for beta'ing this for me. You're a babe! 
> 
> Also, thank you to annachibi@tumblr for drawing out Sam's letter! It's lovely! 
> 
> Title taken from 'Sigh No More' by Mumford & Sons.
> 
> Just a bit of a warning, there's one-sided Sam/Gabriel in here, but it's no malicious or anything, just some cute, light-hearted fun. I wasn't sure how to tag them without being misleading, so I just completely forewent that option all together!

Despite how many relationships Dean has had, he’s never spent Valentine’s Day with someone.  
  
It’s not that he plans it to be like this–not even Dean is  that much of an asshole–because that’s way too much planning, and he just really doesn’t care enough to mastermind something like that. But it’s just never happened. All of his relationships end before the stupid fucking holiday, or they don’t even come close to approaching it. And if he’s  honest with himself–he’s really only had one solid relationship before Cas, and that was with Lisa.  
  
Lisa is the head cheerleader for the rival school. She’s also one of the only students–whether they’re involved in sports or not–that has enough intelligence and drive to have a 4.0 GPA; she volunteers at the local humane societies and has enough  angelic  power left in her to be possibly one of the nicest people Dean has ever met–let  alone having dated. Lisa dumped him three months into their relationship because she didn’t think Dean was reaching his full potential, because she thought she was holding him back (which she probably was, in a way, because about two months in Dean realized that he was gay but he didn’t have the heart to break hers).   
  
Anyway, so their relationship was over in July, a miraculous seven months before the Big Day. After that–though Dean wasn’t heartbroken, he really  wasn’t –Dean decided to hell with relationships, because they had never really worked for him anyway, so he forewent the entire serious relationship thing and started sleeping around instead.   
  
And then he met Castiel.  
  
Castiel and Dean were never close as kids, though they were in all of the same classes. It wasn’t that Dean thought he was too good for Cas, because it’s apparent by looking at them together that it’s the exact opposite. They just never really crossed paths, at least not before.   
  
Dean is popular, nice as a principle rule, and notices everything but chooses to focus on what means the most to him: his car, pie, and his little brother, Sammy. Castiel is terribly intelligent, notices everything and focuses on just as much, and rivals Lisa with how nice he really is. He doesn’t understand pop-culture references, but likes sarcasm and dry humor, and gorges himself on a health kick that’s potent enough to emulate Sam’s (who has convinced their mother that greener is better, and has successfully ruined Dean’s life since he threw out all of the sweets in the Winchester household, claiming that “sweets will be the death of you Dean, if exhaust gas isn’t.”).  
  
He’s not really sure how it happened, how this “thing” between them evolved from ‘I’ve-known-of-you-since-we-were-four-but-I-don’t-really-know-you’ to ‘let’s-go-make-out-in-my-room-with-or-without-orgasms-involved.’ The only thing that Dean is absolutely sure of is that he’s kind of in love with Cas.   
  
He’s not really sure how he feels about this yet.  
  
Basically, for a guy that has one serious relationship under his belt, and a multitude of one night stands, he has no idea how to translate how he feels about his current boyfriend into anything. Most of the time he’s not even sure of what he’s feeling–he’s working on the whole ‘emotionally-uninvolved’ thing. He’s working on a lot of things.  
  
Sam walks into his room, snapping him out of his reverie. He, in all of his twelve-year-old glory, throws himself down on Dean’s bed, and sends him a lost look.  
  
“I think I’m in love,” announces Sam to the world at large.  
  
Dean muffles a laugh into the palm of his hand. “Yeah? Who’s the unlucky girl, Sammy?”  
  
Sam squawks indigently at him. “ Dean ,” he shouts, scandalized. “It’s a  boy .”  
  
Dean raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”   
  
Sam crosses his arms petulantly, in the way that he always does before he’s about to rant on about something that Dean probably doesn’t care about, like plant growing cycles, and why Doctor Who is the ‘ best show in existence, and I can feel your judgment from here, Dean ’. Dean’s never really cared about British pop culture, and his brother ranting on compassionately about it for  hours just makes him like it even less. “Just because I’m a boy doesn’t mean that I can’t like other males, okay? I am free to like whoever I want. I just so happen to like boys. Is there a problem,  Dean ?” He asks, and he fucking  flips his hair for dramatic effect.  
  
Dean throws his hands up defensively, smiling placatingly at his brother. “Dude, I’m the one dating a dude, remember?”  
  
“That doesn’t mean anything, Dean. Homosexuals can still be homophobic, and frankly, I’m not sure where you stand,” his voice is breaking on the end, like it always does right before he’s about to cry, or blubber, or do both.  
  
Dean sighs, and throws an arm around his little brother, because despite all of the dramatics, he can tell that he’s actually bothered by this, which is stupid. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that Sam isn’t actually a thirty-year-old woman and is instead a just-as-emotional twelve-year-old boy. “It doesn’t matter to me who you like, okay squirt? It can be a woman or a man, or a fucking animal–” Dean shudders, because that really  isn’t an image he wants to picture right now, actually. “Okay, maybe not an animal, but you get my point, yeah?”  
  
Sam smiles at him, bright and brilliant, and Dean wonders how he could be such a dick to try to make it disappear–and alright, seriously, the chick flick moments need to stop. “Do you really mean that, Dean?”  
  
Dean nods. “I do,” he says, because he does. It might take some getting used to, but this is Sammy, and if Dean’s honest with himself, he’d do just about anything for the kid.  
  
He’s never really pegged Sam as someone who would be interested in guys–hell, he never really pegged  himself to be interested in them, it just kind of happened, like one moment Cas wasn’t there, and suddenly he was everywhere–but he’s not really bothered by it. It would be hypocritical, and plus, it’s not like he would ever admit this publicly, or audibly, but whatever makes Sam happy, makes Dean happy.   
  
“So, you like a guy?” Dean prompts.  
  
“Yeah, he’s kind of perfect,” he sighs, dreamily.  
  
“Who is it?” He asks, because they’re brothers and they kind of share everything.  
  
Their parents fear they’re becoming co-dependant, but Dean doesn’t think they know what they’re talking about.   
  
“Well–” Sam cuts himself off, suddenly looking bashful, and  scared , like he knows that who he’s about to name is going to, inevitably, piss Dean off.  
  
Dean doesn’t know where this is going, but he’s pretty sure he’s not going to like it.   
  
“Samantha,” Dean warns.  
  
Sam throws bitchface number eighty-four at him, glaring at him through his unruly hair, throwing out his arms in exasperation. “ Dean ,” he says, in the same exact tone.   
  
Dean just levels him with the  look , the one that says ‘ you better tell me what you’re being girly about right now before I pummel you into the ground ’.   
  
“I think I’m in love with Gabriel,” Sam says, slowly, like he’s talking to a incompetent child.  
  
Dean blinks. “Gabriel?” He tests the name in his mouth, and then his eyes narrow. “Gabriel who?” He asks, and at Sam’s bowed head, he puts a rough hand on the side of his face and jerks his brother’s face up to meet his eyes. “Sam. Gabriel  who ?”  
  
Sam gets this faraway look in his eyes, completely forgetting about the fear from three point five seconds ago and going straight into dreamland. “Gabriel Novak,” he says, with feeling.  
  
Dean throws a fist down onto his bed, making his brother jump. “Gabriel is fucking  nineteen -years-old,” he seethes.  
  
Sam shrugs. “Age is just a number, Dean,” he says.   
  
“Not when you’re twelve, Sammy,” Dean says, and then looks into his brother’s eyes “You’re serious about this?”  
  
Sam nods. “ Deadly ,” he declares grimly, and then flippantly throws himself off of the bed. “I think I’ll write him a poem. And maybe send him some chocolates,” Sam says, but he’s mostly talking to himself now. “Do you think he likes dark, white, or regular?”   
  
Dean glares at the side of his brothers face. “I wouldn’t know because I don’t fucking care.”  
  
Sam’s face twists into an offended look and he punches the side of Dean’s shoulder. “Whatever, jerk. I hope you die of food poisoning from the chocolate Cas gives you.”  
  
Dean smirks at him. “I hope Gabriel rips up your love letter, bitch.”  
  
He’s out of the room three seconds later, flipping him off rather happily, and Dean lays back on his bed with a put-upon sigh, because this seriously cannot be his  life .  
  
*  
  
“I don’t understand what all of this even means,” Castiel explains calmly, looking over at his brother who is currently raiding the chocolate isle in the store that they’re in.  
  
Gabriel looks up at him from where he was cooing at some dark chocolate (“I will love you even more when you’re inside of me,” Gabriel strokes the box of chocolate reverently, like it’s something to be praised, and Castiel realizes idly that if he treated half of his relationships with as much respect, then Gabriel probably wouldn’t be single). Castiel doesn’t understand his infatuation, but he’s long since come to terms with the fact that he barely understands anything about Gabriel at all.   
  
“What don’t you understand, bro? S’pretty self-explanatory,” He says this like Castiel should know what everything means.  
  
Castiel isn’t one to celebrate holidays. Or at least, he’s not one to celebrate unnecessary holidays like Valentine’s Day, especially when most of the people celebrating it don’t even realize what they’re actually celebrating. Which kind of depresses him, but most people don’t need to know the history of something. He finds Valentine’s Day kind of ridiculously overrated, because there are three hundred and sixty-four other days of the year that you can show your significant other how much you love them, and it’s quite pointless to have an entire day dedicated to it.  
  
But bigots will be bigots, he supposes. He’s done with trying to explain the values and extremes that people insist in partaking in. So that’s how he ends up here, in the middle of a grocery store aisle with his charming and insufferable older brother, who promised to help him pick out something for Dean.  
  
He’s dating the most popular boy in their school, and it still shocks him every time he thinks about it.  
  
Dean is nothing like he expected him to be. He’s not really sure what he was expecting when Dean agreed to go on a date with him, other than he would probably say no and maybe punch him in the face for his troubles. Neither of those happened, obviously. Dean had looked at him with a glint in his eyes that Castiel had never seen before, and if he was ignorant enough to believe it, he might have named it something close to fondness. He’s nice, not too nice in that overpowering, sick way that kind of pisses everyone off, but in that stand-up way that you really can’t refuse. He puts up with Gabriel and with his eccentric mother who loves Dean more than possibly Castiel does, and for that Castiel knows he’s a keeper.  
  
He might just be in love with Dean–but Castiel has been might-just-be-in-love-with-Dean since kindergarten, when Dean picked up the crayons that Alistair knocked on the floor with a smile and said, “I’m Dean. Alistair’s a jerk, don’t you worry ‘bout him.” (And though they didn’t talk again for almost ten years, Castiel found comfort in this gesture, even years later.)  
  
After Dean came out during their junior year, following a failed attempt at a relationship with Lisa Braden, captain of the cheerleading team at their rival school, Castiel decided to make his move. One thing you should know about Castiel is that he’s scared of everything, and that includes (but is not limited to): relationships, Dean Winchester, spiders, small spaces, and, of course, Dean Winchester.  
  
It took Castiel a month to get up the confidence to even  talk to Dean, and another two to ask him out.   
  
He said yes.  
  
“I’m being serious,” Castiel says, because Dean is great, amazing even. Castiel hadn’t realized just how deep that ran until they actually began officially dating–which Castiel wasn’t even aware of until it was too late to argue otherwise, not that he would have regardless, but the option by then was completely terminated entirely.  
  
And because he’s so great, Castiel  needs to get what he’s buying for him right. He’s not sure what will happen exactly if he doesn’t, but it’s not like he wants to find out. He’s trying to avoid that situation at all costs.   
  
“This is an important matter, Gabriel,” Castiel begins. “This could be the breaking point in our relationship if I end up getting this wrong,” his voice is gravely serious.   
  
Gabriel laughs at him. “You don’t honestly believe that, do you?”  
  
Castiel gives him a pointed look. “Should I not?”  
  
“How  adorable ,” Gabriel sneers, and then turns back to the chocolate. “You’ve got it bad, bro,” he pauses for a moment, and turns back to Castiel, levelling him with a look. “And anyway, the stupid fucker looks at you like you’re Adonis.”  
  
“I don’t believe that’s true,”   
  
Gabriel shrugs. “It is. Everyone knows you drag Winchester around by the dick,” he stresses.  
  
Castiel stares intensely at him until he fidgets. “ Gabriel ,” he warns, for what feels like the umpteenth time. He’s positive that it will be a never-ending stream of warnings and helpless sighs, but he likes to think that Gabriel will somehow come to his senses.  
  
His brother throws up his hands in mock defeat, and whistles to himself lowly. “Aight,”   
  
“What should I get him?” Castiel asks, again. With Gabriel, sometimes you need to ask twice, or thrice.   
  
“He’s  your boyfriend,” Gabriel points out, matter-of-fact. “You should know this.”  
  
“I know,” Castiel says, and he should. He does know when he thinks about it hard enough but the possibility of failure–and how big that possibility actually  is –scares him enough that he forgets everything. Mostly about Dean, but he doesn’t think that the details really matter there. He’s known to clam up when he’s nervous or unsure, and this is really no different.  
  
It’s really a substantial situation here, Castiel thinks.   
  
He ends up picking up some of their lesser known chocolate varieties, one that he remembers in a fleeting moment of realization that Dean mentioned as his favorite. Gabriel leaves after Castiel doesn’t stop complaining, which is fine. It’s not like he was much help anyway.  
  
*  
  
Castiel is doing homework when Gabriel pushes his way into his room.   
  
“Looks like the Winchester’s want some pieces of the Novak Clan,” Gabriel says, holding a wrinkled piece of paper that’s smudged with chocolate.   
  
“Mother and father will be disheartened by your terminology, Gabriel.”  
  
“What?” Gabriel asks dumbly.  
  
“The term ‘clan’ generally has negative connotations,” Castiel intones.  
  
Gabriel shrugs. “Whatever, bro. That’s why you’re the smart one,” he says, and then holds up the piece of paper. “Anyway, as I was saying. They definitely want us.”  
  
Castiel just looks at him. “I do not understand what you’re trying to tell me, Gabriel.”  
  
Gabriel sighs. “Sam Winchester wrote me a love poem,”   
  
Castiel blinks. “I wasn’t aware that he was interested in you.”  
  
“Apparently,” Gabriel says, at length, “he is ‘in love with me.’”  
  
“Gabriel, you’re not going to do anything stupid, are you? Sam is a nice boy,” Castiel warns.   
  
Sam Winchester is arguably nicer than his brother. He’s not tainted yet by society’s values, and he has a kind of naive innocence that Castiel can appreciate–mostly because he still believes that he, too, still has that same type of innocence.   
  
“I was just going to write him–”   
  
Castiel cuts him off with eye-narrowing anger. “ No . You can’t corrupt him like that Gabriel. He’s only twelve.”   
  
“That’s not the only reason, is it?”  
  
“No,” Castiel sighs in defeat. “Dean  is his older brother. If you torture his little brother, no matter how little harm you mean – I just don’t want it to affect our relationship.”  
  
“Fine,” Gabriel says, surrendering for the second time that day. “I won’t write him back. But this is going up on my wall.”  
  
Castiel sighs heavily in relief and goes back to his homework, but only after he’s made sure that he’s locked his door so that he can avoid further interruption.  
  
*  
  
When the Big Day finally comes, Dean clutches the fucking pink and red bag–with  hearts all over it–in his hands tightly, heart beating irritatingly fast in his chest.   
  
He’s never really been this nervous around Castiel (he really  has ) and it’s kind of nerve wracking to think that, while he highly doubts Castiel will dump him because of a horrible gift, he has the chance to make his boyfriend seriously happy, that one wrong move could seriously fuck all of that up.   
  
He stops outside of Castiel’s house, the one that he had kind of gawked at in awe when he had first pulled up before their first date. Castiel’s family is full of money, which made Dean kind of feel intimidated at first, but he doesn’t really notice now. The Novaks are awesome, whether they have money or not, so he barely even remembers it’s still there.  
  
He honks the horn twice, and waits impatiently for his boyfriend to come out so that he can just hand over the damn gift already and stop fretting over it like a girl.  
  
“Sorry that I’m late,” Castiel says, somehow  already in the fucking car, when Dean had eyes on the door the whole time. Dean turns his head from the road–the road ;  when did  that happen?–to look at his boyfriend.   
  
Dean smiles at him, and he doesn’t really know why, because now there’s just something about Castiel that makes it impossible for Dean not to smile in his presence. “It’s not a problem,” he says.  
  
He’s struck at how true those words ring now.   
  
Castiel looks nervous, his face covered in a thin sheen of sweat, and his hair is more rumpled than usual. One once-over and Dean notes that he probably got dressed in the dark this morning, but that’s okay. He’s still fucking gorgeous, and he always will be to Dean.  
  
“Didja wake up on the wrong side of the bed, or something, babe?”  
  
Castiel’s eyes brighten at the pet name, and Dean makes a mental note to call him that more, because there’s nothing more brilliant than that  look . “No,” he says, slowly, like he’s searching for what to say. “I was just nervous,” he says honestly.  
  
“‘Bout seeing me?” Dean asks, smirking in forced nonchalance. “How flattering.”  
  
Cas elbows him in the side before he picks up the perfectly wrapped package at his feet, pushing it at Dean with nervously twitching fingers. “Here,” he says, quickly.  
  
Dean blinks. “Is this for me?”  
  
Cas sighs. “Obviously.”  
  
Dean thinks he reflexively mutters something like ‘asshole’ under his breath, but he’s not really sure because suddenly the only thing he can think about is the package in his hands.   
  
He knew this would happen, because exchanging gifts on holidays is something that boyfriends do, but it’s different actually having it in his hands. It’s weird to think that a couple of months ago he wouldn’t even know what this felt like, that he would have been blind to this. There is something exhilarating about knowing that you’re special enough to receive a gift from someone that you believe to be special, too.  
  
Dean hands him the bag that he was holding onto desperately moments before Cas showed up, and sighs. “This is for you,” he murmurs.   
  
Cas smiles at him, actually honest-to-god smiles at him–which is something that doesn’t happen often, but Dean makes the mental note to make it happen more, even if that means buying Cas all of the gifts in the world.   
  
“You didn’t have to–”  
  
Dean cuts him off, and says, like a fucking girl, “I know. But I wanted to.”  
  
Cas nods, and leans over to place a chaste kiss on the side of Dean’s mouth. “Thank you,” he whispers.  
  
Dean flushes red, and shrugs. “S’not like you even opened it yet Cas.”   
  
Cas shrugs, like he doesn’t need to because it came from Dean and that makes it automatically perfect, and the thought warms Dean so impossibly that he ends up accidentally tearing some of the wrapping paper on his gift.  
  
“I guess I’ll just, uh–” Dean says, awkwardly–he’s never been good at receiving gifts from people, especially ones that he cares about–and starts to tear off the wrapping paper with careful fingers.  
  
Once all of the wrapping paper fall away, he kind of stares at what it is in shock. “I don’t understand,” he whispers, but he does, he really  does .  
  
Cas starts rambling on nervously. “I saw this in a thrift store, and I had been panicking the entire day because I didn’t know what to get you, and this was kind of... I thought you would like it, but if you don’t, it would honestly be no–”  
  
Dean cuts him off with a kiss to the mouth. “Babe,” he whispers. “It’s perfect,” he says, because there’s a fucking  signed Metallica album in his lap, and he’s not really sure why exactly it’s actually there. “Thank you,” he murmurs, soft and open, like the kiss he places on Cas’ lips.   
  
“There’s more,” Castiel says, and carefully lifts the Metallica album out of the box, treating it like it’s gold and not just another record. Dean appreciates it more than he could ever possibly say, but he’s sure that Cas already knows that, so he doesn’t have to.  
  
Dean can’t stop the grin that spreads over his face when he sees the chocolate underneath everything. “Oh,” he sighs, and picks it up. “My favorite.”  
  
“I would be a pretty horrible boyfriend if I didn’t know your favorite chocolate, Dean,” Castiel says, but he sounds amused and it makes Dean’s chest hurt pathetically.   
  
“Thank you,” he says again, no matter how hard it is to say it, because Cas deserves to hear it, and Dean’s all-too-willing to give Cas everything.  
  
“I hope you like them,” Cas sounds uncertain, which is fucking stupid.  
  
“They’re perfect,” Dean insists. “Now open yours, so I’m not the only one acting like a fuckin’ girl,” he says, but there’s no malice in his voice.   
  
Castiel levels him with one last intense stare before he nods, almost like he forgot that he even had a gift–and that’s just so Cas that he can’t help but laugh. His fingers carefully tear off the tape that holds it together, because Dean had no wrapping paper and he wanted it to be as much of a surprise as possible.  
  
Dean watches Castiel’s eyes, because they’re the most expressive part about him (and they’re really fucking alluring, too).  
  
Suddenly, so suddenly that Dean can’t even react, he has a lapful of Castiel–and he’s not even sure  how Cas leaped over there so quickly without hurting himself–and has enough time to tentatively wrap his arms around his boyfriend’s waist before he’s being kissed deeply.   
  
Dean makes a noise in the back of his throat, either one in surprise or in pleasure, he’s not really sure, but he rolls with the kiss, pushing back when Cas pushes forward. The kiss is over as quick as it began, and normally that would bother Dean, but the kiss, while as pleasant as it was, really doesn’t tell him much about Cas really  thinks .  
  
Castiel’s eyes are lit up in happiness, pupils so blown wide that the striking blue of them almost is completely overridden by black. “ Dean ,”   
  
Cas wraps his fingers around Dean’s forearm. “Dean, you got me  Mumford & Sons  tickets,” he says, as if Dean doesn’t already know.  
  
Dean nods, “I did, babe. Happy Valentine’s Day.”   
  
Cas shakes his head. “How–”  
  
Dean trails a nervous hand down Cas’ thighs. “I would get you Johnny Cash tickets, but ya know, the man’s kind of six feet under, and while I kind of love you a lot, I don’t think it would be  possible for that to happen, so I got the next best thing.”  
  
Cas blinks at him. “Love?” He chokes out.  
  
Dean backpedals. “What?” He asks, dumbly.   
  
“Love,” Cas repeats. “You love me?”  
  
Dean knows that he should be blue in the face with denial here, because he’s stumbling blind in the dark and he has no idea how far deep Cas’ feelings really run, but there is something so honest and open about Cas’ face that makes it impossible for Dean to lie to him right now. And he finds in a fleeting moment of mushy emotional girliness that he doesn’t  want to.  
  
“I do,” he says instead. “I do, babe. I’ve loved you for a while, now.”  
  
Cas smiles at him crookedly, kind of showing teeth, but then kind of not. “I love you too, Dean,” he says. “I think I probably always have.”  
  
Dean can’t help but grin, and he pulls Cas closer, even though he’s already so close that Dean can feel his breath on the side of his face. “Never thought it’d feel so good to hear those words, man,” he says.  
  
Cas turns his head to face him by his chin. “I always knew.”  
  
And really, Dean thinks as he leans into kiss Cas again, he could get used to this whole ‘having a Valentine’ thing.  It might take some getting used to, and he’s sure they’ll stumble more often than not, but as long as he has Cas by his side, he’s sure they can do anything– together .

 

Sam's letter (in case ya'll are interested–I normally would go through the trouble of putting this on a paper texture, but because I am feeling pretty ansty and just want to get this up, I'll probably edit it in later!):

"Roses are red (and pink, and white, and yellow too),  
Violets are blue,  
I think about you all of the time.  
Gabriel, I think I'm in love with you,  
Please tell me you love me too."  
\- Samuel Winchester   


End file.
